Yeah, that’s me, just in…from another roadtrip up Nawth…where it was, in a word, cold cold cold!
Started off at W3LPL’s, planning to do the ARRL DX Test, but discovered one of the support ropes broken on the 160M four square Friday morning at breakfast. (Frank actually saw this from inside the house, which surprised me,, but it IS his station & he should know what’s what.) Anyhow, we went out & found that only the short 160M vertical tower needed to be climbed to do the repair, so that was not bad. Spent the remainder of the day getting ready, etc. K1HTV & I on 160…ended up getting some better propagation than our W PA rivals, who only bested us on 20M, a nice end to the weekend. Then over to K4VV’s place, where we worked in the shack on the switching matrix, reset the Big Bertha rotation calibration (repaired another blown pot on tower One, what’s causing that??), then moved over to his in-house AB-621 setup, where there was some broken stuff, 80/40M dipoles, etc. The early morning temps were in the teens, which made for some chilly foot-stompin times. Wednesday night I moved down to Fredericksburg, VA, & showed up at NI4F’s. All went according to Hoyle, until we unpacked the new Yaesu 1000 rotator. Could not make it work.Tried everything, including continuity checks on 200 ft of rotator cable! Who knows what’s what with that. Brought it home to trouble-shoot, after putting the broken 800 back in place on the tower to hold the beams.
Home around 2AM. What am I thinking, I ask myself? Stay tuned, indeed….
Monthly Archive for February, 2009
The day dawned just like usual. Except I found myself
(just like in the commercial), with an achy, stuffy, congested, sick all over feeling–some
sort of bug, I guess. Spent the day half-asleep or groggy or otherwise unfocused. Even hurt to READ, for God sakes! Loaded up on over-the-counter meds:
Zicam, Mucinex, lots of Vitamin C, et cetera. Finally gave in & went to bed at 3PM, got up at 6PM, feeling a little better. Supposed to work on WA4GP’s tower tomorrow, but at this rate, that’s doubtful. Need to recover before the weekend, for sure!
Progress on the Ai0O 160M vertical project: all the ground radial wire secured/shipped from supplier in FL. Worked K5D on 18Mhz, even wearing headphones was unpleasant experience…
stay tuned
Well, plans to work on the WA4GP station took an unexpected turn today, as I forgot to inspect the original earth anchors, & needed to install new EQ plates, which I did not have in the truck. So, K4DXA & I headed out to Gaston County, & did some tower work at my old QTH, instead. Got the first guy bracket installed on the tower, guys set, et cetera. Now we can continue stacking tower (120 footer, w/a TH-6/TH-6/TH-11 array, topped by a 402CD.
stay tuned
The WX was the deciding factor, as the temp finally got above freezing. In a big way, with a high of 62. Took N4IZ with me, & headed over to Concord, where we finally got the last of WA4GP’s broken EME array down on the ground. Managed to haul up & install the new mast.
Next step, making the tower a bit safer & straighter with some new guy brackets & new EHS, & then installing the new LDF-7/LDF-4 feedlines & new UHF antennas.
Today, more eBay estate sale items, packing some gear to ship to NR5M….
Cold, cold temps prevented any tower work, even limiting the amount of outdoor running around, et cetera.
LOTS of email traffic regarding this “new” site, all of it overwhelmingly positive. Thanks must go to Scott KA9FOX at QTH.com for help getting me started.
Tickets for Visalia purchased. Should be a fun trip. Looking forward to my first visit. NR5M continues to expand his plans for his station, now including a separate VHF/UHF setup. George is now adding on to the house to accomodate the additions! W2GD about to depart for KP5 DXpedition; GL buddy…
Estate sale gear & items inventory in SC today, Thursday 2/5/2009.
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